ARIN consults community on retiring legacy directory services
ARIN is seeking community feedback on a plan to retire Whois-RWS, RWhois and Whois (Port 43), moving to RDAP as its single standardised directory service.
The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is consulting its community on a proposed roadmap to consolidate its directory services around Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP). ARIN currently operates four directory information services: Whois-RWS, RWhois, Whois (Port 43) and RDAP. The organisation says maintaining multiple services that provide similar information creates additional administrative and operational costs and increases its technical attack surface.
Under the proposal, RDAP would become ARIN’s only standardised directory service. ARIN says the transition would improve standardisation and automation, reduce operational overhead, and allow future directory-service features to be developed through RDAP.
The proposed retirement dates are 1 July 2027 or later for Whois-RWS, 1 January 2028 or later for RWhois, depending on the availability of a planned migration tool, and 1 January 2029 or later for Whois (Port 43). The longer transition period for Whois (Port 43) reflects its continued use by cybersecurity professionals, researchers, law enforcement and other organisations.
ARIN plans to provide communication and migration support throughout the transition. For RWhois users, it also intends to recommend an open-source RDAP server and provide a tool to help migrate existing data.
The consultation is open until 14 September 2026 at 17:00 ET, with ARIN asking users to provide feedback on the proposed retirement timelines and identify potential barriers to migration.
